


we could settle at a table for two

by piggy09



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Fake Marriage, Marriage of Convenience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 19:27:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17814077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: “Think of it as a business arrangement,” says Rachel.“What the hell,” Sarah says. “No.”





	we could settle at a table for two

**Author's Note:**

> An anon asked for "propunk + marriage of convenience + Realisation of Feelings & making out?" and I started writing that, then realized that I was 2.5k words in and they hadn't even gotten fake married yet. So I guess you just get the start of this disastrous marriage, and if I end up wanting to add more to it I will later. Enjoy!
> 
> [warning: brief mention of abuse]

“Think of it as a business arrangement,” says Rachel.

She sounds serious about it. Her hands are folded in front of her on her sleek glass desk; her voice is calm. She hasn’t so much as twitched an eyebrow — like this is a normal thing, something to cover before the two o’clock board meeting with whoever the shit.

“What the hell,” Sarah says. “No.”

Rachel blinks at her. Sarah’s still standing in the middle of Rachel’s office, holding the package that Rachel was supposed to sign for, one of her boot heels drumming against the floor. She wonders what this looks like from outside of the room – Rachel Duncan, DYAD CEO, wearing a sharp black skirt suit and staring at some garbage deliveryperson in a worn-out leather coat, trying to convince her of…something.

Whoever’s outside of the room probably wouldn’t hit the nail on the head, though. Wouldn’t guess what they’re arguing about.

Unless Sarah isn’t even the first person Rachel’s asked, which is likely.

“This isn’t a spontaneous romantic gesture,” Rachel says. “I find myself in need of a…partner. I don’t see a ring on your finger. Are you amendable?”

Sarah crosses the room and drops the cardboard box on Rachel’s desk. “Can you sign for this,” she says. “Please. So I can go.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“I don’t _know_ you,” Sarah says.

“Marriages have been built on less.”

“No,” Sarah says, “I really don’t think they have. Usually, when someone asks someone else to bloody marry them, it’s ‘cause they bloody – love each other. There’s no bloody way you love me, we’ve met – what – seven times? You aren’t in love with me, are you?”

There’s a dizzy second where Rachel doesn’t answer, and Sarah’s brain spins itself through the entire idea of Rachel being in love with her. She actually can’t stand it; she drops herself into the wheeled chair across the desk from Rachel. It doesn’t help with the vertigo.

“I told you,” Rachel says calmly. She pushes the box across her desk with just the tips of her fingers, leans her elbows in front of her on the desk and steeples her fingers. “This isn’t about love, Sarah. It’s about necessity.”

“You need a green card.”

“No,” Rachel says.

“Then why are you doing this.”

Rachel twitches her eyebrows up a little bit and otherwise does not react. “Are you willing?” she says. “I’ll compensate you, if you’d like.”

She doesn’t say anything else. Sarah puts her foot down on the floor and pushes the chair back and forth in little circles. From the corner of her eye, she watches Rachel watch her fingers. _She really thinks you’ll be stupid enough to do this_ , says a voice in Sarah’s head that mostly sounds like Siobhan. _Like anyone would be enough of an idiot to jump on—_

“Sure,” she says. “Alright.”

 _What the fuck?_ says the inside of her brain.

 _I don’t know!_ says everything else.

 _She’s hot!_ says one small part of her that she does her best to crush.

Rachel’s neck jerks up at a horror-movie speed. Her eyes are wide and sharp, darting back and forth between Sarah’s eyes like guided lasers. “You’ll do it,” she says.

“Do we actually have to...y’know,” Sarah says. “Get. Get married.” She slouches down a little lower in her chair, folds her arms over her stomach.

“Yes.”

“Right,” Sarah says.

“At a courthouse. We can separate once all of this is over, it won’t be a problem.”

“Sure,” Sarah says again. She’s low enough in her chair that her ability to stay upright is getting a little iffy. She’s going to fall on the floor of this office, and then Rachel is going to say _stand up, we have to get married_. And Sarah will be her wife, which is – it’s just – yeah.

“Let’s do it, then,” Sarah hears her mouth say. After a second of silence she scrabbles back up into the seat and says: “You know where the courthouse is? I know the police station, that’s it. Never been to a courthouse.”

Rachel’s staring at Sarah with her laser eyes. “Now,” she says; even though she says it without any inflection, it’s definitely a question.

“Yeah,” Sarah says. She’s warming up to it; her body’s beginning to jitter in the way it does when she’s about to do something that’s her new worst thing, her new personal record. “Now. Yeah, let’s do it, why the hell not. You got other plans?”

“I have a job to do,” Rachel says. “I believe you do as well.”

“I get a lunch break.”

It feels good, the way Rachel’s staring at her blankly. It feels like Sarah’s in control of this situation; she definitely isn’t. She’s careening down a hill in a broken shopping cart, but when has she ever not been. Her whole life she’s been holding on to the edge of that rattling cart, trying to keep it together, waiting for it to hit the ground.

Rachel hasn’t broken eye contact with Sarah. The way she looks at Sarah makes Sarah think she can see the shopping cart, and Sarah in it – still fifteen, which was when she was at her stupidest. _Don’t look too close at the bruises_ , Sarah’d say. _Just be glad you aren’t my worst date_. And they’d both watch Sarah-at-fifteen go shooting down the hill, laughing – because there’s nothing else to do, when you know you’re about to die.

Rachel watches the wreckage of the shopping cart for an endless glassy second, and then slowly presses an immaculately-manicured finger to a button on her desk phone. “Martin?”

 _Yes, Ms. Duncan?_ chirps a voice through the phone.

“Cancel my twelve o’clock.”

_Are you s—_

“Yes. Tell them – are you listening?”

 _Of course, Ms. Duncan_.

“Tell them that I’m terribly sorry, but something urgent has come up. Give them no other details. Do you understand.”

_Yes, Ms. Duncan. I—_

She lifts her finger off the button. “Shall we?” she says.

* * *

It’s very awkwardly silent all the way down the elevator and into the backseat of the honest-to-god chauffeured car that glides up once they exit the DYAD building. Rachel’s frowning at her phone. Sarah has her hands shoved into the pockets of her jacket; she’s working a thumb into the hole in the right pocket, waiting to break through it. Siobhan’s voice is getting louder and louder in her brain. It’s crazy that S can find a way to yell at her even when she doesn’t know what Sarah’s doing – even when she has no idea Sarah’s doing something shitty, something stupid. She’s just that good.

Outside the car, the city smears itself against the windows. The car’s quiet enough to be unnerving; S’ truck coughs to itself, and the bus clunks, and the subway hisses and spits. This is the quiet of the very rich, and Sarah doesn’t fit into it at all.

It’s a relief when Rachel says: “Are you good at lying?”

“What?” Sarah says, out of instinct. She looks across the backseat at Rachel: still tapping away at her phone, thumbs flying over the virtual keyboard. She’s put on a jacket for the terrifying outdoors – it’s black, so she blends into the seat.

And also: Sarah should stop staring at Rachel’s hands and answer the question. “Yeah,” she says. She thinks about it; she laughs, can’t help it. “Yeah,” she says again, “you got lucky there, yeah? That’s the only thing I’m really good at.”

“Don’t insult yourself,” Rachel says. “You’re very good at your job.”

“Rachel,” Sarah says, and then sputters stupidly for a second. She hadn’t realized she’d never said Rachel’s name until now, when she said it, when she realized it. _Rachel_. It doesn’t mean anything, but it tastes sick-sweet in Sarah’s mouth and Rachel’s thumbs have stopped moving.

The money-silence stretches out, and out, and out.

Sarah clears her throat. It sounds like rocks scraping together. “I just left my bloody job to get _married_ to one of our clients,” she says, leaning back in the seat. “Either I’ve still got this job when this is all over, so I’m terrible at it, or they fire me, so I don’t have a job to be bad at. Eh?”

“They won’t fire you.”

“Did you miss the part where—”

“I won’t let them,” Rachel says, in that same conversational tone she said _Sarah, I’d like you to marry me_. Like the idea of anyone disagreeing with her is unthinkable.

Sarah sighs between her teeth, leans away from Rachel, rests her head on the window. A desperate part of her heart wants to believe it – that Rachel could make a phone call, that she could stop Sarah’s life from falling apart. She really wants to believe that, and that’s stupid. She’s stupid. She’s stupid, and it’s not like Rachel gives a shit if Sarah has a job or not. So.

“Sarah,” Rachel says. Her voice is like honey and butterscotch. “Look at me, please.”

Sarah looks at her.

“You’re going to be fine,” Rachel says. “I appreciate your help.”

“My mum would kill me,” Sarah says. “If I told her, I mean, she’d kill me. She’d like you. But she’d kill me.”

“Are you going to tell her?” Rachel says. If it was Sarah asking the question, it would be a dare; she’d lean across the backseat and ask it low, sly. Rachel asks it with a polite curiosity. _Do you have a mother? Do you tell her things about yourself? Does she care about those things? How novel._

“I’ve lied about worse,” Sarah says, and looks back out the window again.

* * *

Brain-S doesn’t shut up all the way into the courthouse, and when they’re waiting at the courthouse, and when Rachel is asking people in a polite intimate murmur if they’d be willing to be witnesses. For their marriage. S lets Sarah know all the ways that this is so _incredibly_ stupid. Sarah listens to the whole list and follows Rachel into the room anyways.

It’s shabby. The priest looks tired; Sarah bumps her chin up at him, a _being a faceless cog in the workforce sure does suck eh?_ kind of gesture. He nods back at her, which could mean absolutely fucking anything.

He does the whole speech and shit. Sarah looks at Rachel, who’s looking back at her with an expression that’s curious and also full of something small Sarah can’t read. Sarah looks away. Down at the floor. Up at the ceiling. To the wilting potted plant in the corner. To one of their witnesses, who’s playing some superhero game on their phone. Back at Rachel – who’s still looking at Sarah – back to the floor. She mutters _I do_ when it’s her turn to say it. She doesn’t look at Rachel; she looks at Rachel’s high-heeled shoes. They look expensive.

“You may now kiss the bride,” says the priest, and then Sarah’s eyes shoot back to Rachel. And then Rachel’s mouth, and then Rachel’s eyes, and Rachel’s eyes saying some sixteen-syllable version of _What the fuck!_ and Sarah’s eyes saying back to her, _I don’t know, what the fuck!_ and then the priest clears his throat and mumbles something about needing things to be official and Sarah watches the wheel of the shopping cart hit a rock and watches herself go flying and puts her hand on Rachel’s arm and puts her mouth directly up against Rachel’s mouth.

It lasts one horrible second, and another even more horrible second, and then Sarah thinks: _oh, shit, she’s probably straight_. Then they stop kissing. Sarah leans back, licks her lips, coughs. “Just say it,” she mutters to the priest.

The priest says it. Rachel looks like she’s gonna throw up. Their witnesses clap a few times; once they’ve gotten their three or four sad limp claps out of the way, they trickle out of the room.

“You have two minutes,” says the priest. “Please don’t…you know. Make it official. Wait until the honeymoon, okay? We have more people we need to get in here.”

 _What the fuck!_ says Rachel. She blinks and swallows and says: “Fine.”

The door makes a polite little click-sound behind the priest as he leaves.

“So,” Sarah says. “That worked.”

“It did.”

“Sorry,” Sarah says. “About the whole.” She gestures vaguely between the two of them. “But, uh, that – that gets it over with, yeah?”

“In a matter of speaking.” The color is trickling slowly back into Rachel’s face. She blinks three more times. She is definitely straight, because Sarah isn’t _that_ bad of a kisser.

“Thank you again,” Rachel says, “for what is almost certainly the strangest favor you’ve ever been asked.”

“Big assumption,” Sarah says. “And it’s fine, I need more hobbies.” She sticks her hands back in her pockets for lack of anything else to do with them. There’s the hole again; she pushes her thumb further through it.

The corner of Rachel’s mouth ticks up and Sarah feels a thrill of glee at the small wrinkle of Rachel’s smile. _Ha_ , she wants to say, _you see that? You see that?_ But there’s no one to see it. It’s gone in a second, anyways; Rachel’s tongue darts out to her lower lip, she swallows, her face goes back to Flat Robot. “I’ll need your telephone number,” she says.

“Oh,” Sarah says. “Yeah, uh.” She gropes in her back pocket for her phone, goes to unlock it. God her boss is pissed. Of course. It’s fine, it doesn’t matter, she’s lost jobs before this one and she’ll lose jobs after. Whatever! She unlocks the phone, opens her contacts, hands it over to Rachel – and receives in exchange Rachel’s iPhone. It’s maybe four years newer than Sarah’s banged-up piece of shit, and every few seconds another email alert pops up. Each one has a different word in the title that Sarah doesn’t understand. She puts in her phone number; she sets the contact name as _sarah_ , and then in a giddy hysterical second she adds a ring emoji. Swaps the phone back.

“Do you know your ring size?” Rachel says, like she’s read Sarah’s fucking mind.

“There’re sizes?” Sarah says.

Rachel blinks at her. Once. Twice. “Give me your hand,” she says, holding out her own imperious hand like this is a normal thing straight rich women do with each other. Hey, maybe it is, Sarah wouldn’t know. She puts her hand in Rachel’s hand and watches Rachel frown at Sarah’s ring finger. She watches—

—she watches Rachel size her up for a ring. A wedding ring, for their marriage. Rachel’s hand is warm and dry; Sarah’s pretty sure her own hand is sweating up six waterparks.

“Good,” Rachel says definitively, and she drops Sarah’s hand. Sarah shoves it back into her pocket.

“Do you have any metal allergies?” Rachel asks.

“No idea,” Sarah says. “Cheap shit turns my skin blue, but that’s normal, yeah?”

“Is it?” Rachel says, sounding sincerely upset about this concept. She slides her phone back into the pocket of her jacket, says: “I’m not going to buy you a ring that turns your skin blue.”

“Am I getting you a ring?” Sarah says. “D’you need a ring? I don’t…” and there’s no good way to say _I don’t make enough money to buy you whatever diamonds we both think you deserve_. So instead she feels stupid, and sick, and small.

“No,” Rachel says. “Of course not. I’m buying them both.” Her eyes flick hummingbird-quick around the room and then settle back on Sarah. She inhales slowly through her nose. “Sarah?”

“Rachel.”

“Are you going to lie for me.”

It’s the most serious question Sarah could be asked in this room. Two minutes ago a priest asked if she’d take Rachel to be her lawfully wedded wife, but this matters more.

“Yeah,” Sarah says. “I am.”

And Rachel smiles – all the way, the corners of her lips curling up like flower petals in the good warm sunshine. “Well,” she says. “I will see you when it’s time to start.”

“Guess so.”

Rachel puts her hand on Sarah’s shoulder, leans forward, and presses her lips softly to Sarah’s cheek. She smells like little white flowers and liquor; her hand is still warm. She leans back again. Her palm lingers on Sarah’s shoulder for one endless second before Rachel walks out of the room.

“I’m married,” Sarah says to herself, voice small in the empty dirty chapel. She digs the heels of her hands into her face; it doesn’t make her wake up, so she rolls her shoulders out and leaves the room. The crowd of hopeful future couples watches Sarah trudge out of the courthouse and into the street.

Rachel’s car has already driven away. “ _Shit_ ,” Sarah says, and starts walking towards the nearest bus station.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Settle Down" by Kimbra.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


End file.
